Momentum: Contact
by Rimshooter
Summary: Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117 destroyed the ark three years ago in his universe. John Shepherd defeated Sovereign four weeks ago. Master Chief drifts aimlessly in space, through the Venos Xenos cluster, a nebula with several star systems. Hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**

**Bioware, Microsoft and various other companies have claim to Mass Effect.**

**Bungie and various other companies have claim to Halo.**

**I have claim to neither and this is for recreational purposes only.**

!Notice!

_This is my first attempt at writing in the Mass Effect Universe. I'm not asking you neglect to criticize, I'm asking you take this into consideration, and not flat out insult me. Anything less than appropriate will be reported. Cortana is still 'alive' because she goes into hibernation for extended periods of time, only checking up on the Chief for a minute every month before going back to sleep._

_For clarification, this is what happened after the battle in Mass Effect. I'll get to Halo when it matters._

_Ashley and Tali stayed with Shepherd on his new ship The Silver Gale. Tali only until she found something of interest for her pilgrimage._

_Joker was given his choice of ships and chose to go with Shepherd, for obvious reasons._

_Wrex returned to bounty hunting, and then went into the Krogan military when the council agreed to lift the genophage, on the condition that the Krogan explore and inhabit their own space if they couldn't control their population._

_Garrus went on to become the head of C-Sec._

_Liara returned to her research._

_Anderson became the first Human councilor. _

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**Title- **Momentum

**Summary-** Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117 destroyed the ark three years ago in his universe. John Shepherd defeated Sovereign four weeks ago. Master Chief drifts aimlessly in space, through the Venos Xenos cluster, a nebula with several star systems, housing a large abundance of Prothean structures, even some cities near completely intact.

**Chapter-** First Encounters of a familiar kind.

**Chief**

The rear-section of the _Forward_ _Unto Dawn_ drifted aimlessly in space, lost in the confines of a slipspace pocket, trapped there by a cruel twist of fate. Her engines were black and her halls silent, no more controlled chaos of her long-gone crew. It was silent, all that one could discern was that it was a ghost-ship, a monument to the past and sins best forgotten. This ship was an enigma for her people, though there was nothing statistically special about her.

In fact, all that made her unique was she was the tomb of heroes. An AI and soldier to be precise. The soldier was the last of his kind, a breed of augmented super-soldiers code-named SPARTANS, and the AI was the best in her field of decryption, hacking, and various other routines. Both were recognized universally back home as the destroyers of the flood and covenant, the saviors of humanity. `Twas their fate to slumber blissfully through the passing ages in a coffin of cold steel, which tempted ever so slightly with death's embrace. The AI would hibernate days on end, waking up only once every three days, checking up on her systems and sub-routines, before gazing at her protector, deciding if she should wake him up or not, before deciding better of it. _'Wake me, when you need me.'_ A sentence that stated all too clear what it meant, he was to sleep until they were discovered, by friend or foe, or until she needed him for another emergency.

If she was to 'die', for example.

She woke up, her holographic form appearing on her pedestal, glancing furtively about unconsciously as she checked up on the ship and its systems. She passed over what remained of the radar, wait, what was that? A huge energy signature appeared on her charts. She couldn't get a visual or any accurate readings, so she did the only thing she could do.

She woke him up.

The pod hissed and worked its way pen, slowly, as its occupant placed a massive, olive-plated hand on the side of his coffin, before rising, shouldering a nearby weapon and turning to the AI. He was a monster, seven feet tall, with an olive-drabbed armor covering most his body, excluding the abdomen which had some sort of hard-weaved substance. His face was invisible, behind the polarized, amber plate on his helmet. "How long was I out, Cortana."

"About three years, Chief.", she replied, "I just picked up several hundred energy spikes on my scanners, and you can guess the rest. If you don't mind, being in a decaying mainframe for months on end isn't comfortable."

He nodded and placed his hand onto the pedestal, downloading her into his suit. Chief didn't question her lifespan, it was a sensitive subject. He shook off the cold feeling he got from her and started off through the door, following a sign clearly reading ARMORY.

"Is it me, or has it gotten more cramped in here?", she joked.

"You must've gained weight." Was his reply. Even the stoicest of soldiers couldn't stay quiet forever, it was just too much.

"Yeah, sure. Must've been the ark that did it." She said, chuckling at the impossibility of her 'gaining weight', as she had no mass to weigh anyway. She was an electrical current, at laymen terms.

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**Shepherd**

Another boring patrol for Commander Shepherd, as his ship, an alliance frigate and the first of the new class to be produced. It was the first production series modeled after the Normandy, which was a prototype. The only difference was it was slightly larger, and had more firepower. And it was stuck patrolling around one of the safest, or at least most peaceful, sectors of space. This would be the Venos Xenos cluster.

His ship was the _Silver Gale_

He continued on his way, toward the mass relay beside the wreckage, which he only noticed because it drifted aimlessly in front of him, the words '**Forward Unt**' written boldly in white paint. He watched it drift by, and noted the high carbon scoring. The rest of it drifted by, revealing the point where it was cleanly sliced.

"Joker?"

"It's an unknown classification commander, but that's English on the side. Looks like the res of the message got cut off, quite literally. That wound is a perfect cut, whatever caused it sliced through the ship like butter."

"Right, anywhere we can board it from?"

"Hold on, I'm checking.", Joker replied.

"There are several airlocks on the side, you could possibly go EVA and enter through one of them, several of them are open. They were probably escape pods."

"Right." He opened his comm. "Tali, Ashley, we're doing a salvage run. Meet me in the drop-bay."

Shepherd didn't bother to scan for life-signs. After all, how could _this ship_ support life anymore?

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(For clarification, Tali is a Quarian, and is native to the Migrant Fleet which is a huge nomadic fleet made of ramshackle ships, so she knows how to salvage very well. He brought Ashley to help guard Tali while she salvages. He could of brought a random marine, but Ashley would be a better fighter.)

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**Chief**

"Hold on Chief, my sensor just got something. The energy signature just got a lot closer, we're most likely going to be boarded. Put me in that console over there, I'll seal the airlocks. Despite your expectations, the reactor still works." Cortana announced, '_Though we'd be dead if it didn't.'_

Master Chief obliged and Cortana waited for their boarders to get inside.

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**Shepherd**

Commander Shepherd lead his squad to the nearest airlock, which was closed. Tali hacked it, commenting that she was surprised the ship still had any power. They proceeded through the now open airlock, to see that there was a short corridor, which was circular in shape and had a door with broken windows, leaving only a bent metal frame, on the end. This confirmed Joker's suspicions that this was meant for an escape pod. The door was easy enough to due to the zero-g enthronement. They just floated through the broken glass, careful not to get cut.

They moved past a maintenance passage, which was blocked from the inside by an unknown, heavy object. It wasn't a crate or shaped like a container, so none of them wanted to find out what it really was, lest it be a corpse. They entered a hallway with a long, thin window on the wall, on each end of the window were crevices. There were no other passages. As they reached the end of the hallway, they heard the sound of metal scraping metal, and turned around to see a blast door crash closed behind them. They looked in front of them and saw another airlock do the same thing. The lights turned on and the lights on the airlocks turned red.

"Nothing is ever simple around you, is it Shepherd?" Tali remarked as she approached the airlock, cautiously examining it.

"Well, can you open it?" Shepherd asked.

"Well, yes. But it will take time, someone, or something, has placed several firewalls on the controls. And we're not blasting through it, it's made out of a thick metal, my guess is it would take several shots from the Mako's cannon."

"Great, get on it."

Looking through the window on the door, which he punched and found to be bulletproof, at best, he saw the lights on the other side were on as well. There was some sort of pedestal directly across from him. To his surprise, or maybe not, a hologram flickered into life of it. It was a blue woman, who promptly smiled and waved at his face, before vanishing. Shepherd blinked, an AI?

"Almost got it." Tali muttered, before cursing and turning to Shepherd. "Just as I was about to bypass the last firewall, another set of them appeared, there's twice as many this time."

"Great, we're trapped. Never a lack of excitement with you Commander." Ashley remarked.

"Sit tight, I saw a hologram on the other side, she waved. There's probably someone coming."

"That's impossible! This ship hasn't seen use in at least several months." Tali feuded.

"It does have power, someone would have to maintain it." Ashley mentioned.

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**Both**

Chief downloaded Cortana into his suit and she made a remark, "They're trapped near the starboard escape pod bays, floor twelve.

Chief nodded and became a blur as he salvaged what weapons he could carry from the armory, four grenades, a battle rifle with two extra clips, three extra clips for his MA5B, and a M6B with extra clip. He managed to put all these on his magnetic suit and picked up a shotgun, gathering up a few clips for it.

He then rushed through the ship until he reached the starboard pods, which were lit up to his surprise, and he turned off his flashlight. He walked up to a nearby pedestal in front of the blast door and inserted Cortana, before shouldering his shotgun. "Open it."

Her hologram nodded and turned to the airlock, which promptly slid open, catching the three trapped inside by surprise, as they were apparently arguing. They started reaching for their weapons, but Chief but a stop to that as he rushed forward at incredible speeds, to them anyway, and put his pistol to the head of on of them, a female dressed in an odd environmental suit. He examined the other two and let up a bit, but not very noticeably, as he guessed they were human.

The only male in the group, dressed in some weird armor, put his weapon down a little and asked, "Who are you, what race are you?"

"He could ask you the same thing, you're not wearing any UNSC suits, and you don't carry anything I'm familiar with. What are you doing on this ship?"

"Chief, its been three years.." Cortana cautioned.

Shepherd sighed and motioned Ashley to lower her weapon, which she did grudgingly. "I'm Commander Shepherd, the first human specter and ex alliance military officer. You are?"

Master Chief saluted out of habit and caught himself before replying, Tali still at gunpoint, "Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117 S-" He caught himself again.

Cortana chuckled a bit and gained the attention of Shepherd's squad. "Is that an AI?"

"UNSC AI CTN 0452-9 at your service. Call me Cortana. Chief, they're human put the gun down."

Master Chief grudgingly replied and moved over by Cortana, as the squad seemed to become unnerved as Cortana made her statement. Especially the one Master Chief just had at gun-point. "That can't be, AIs are against citadel law!"

"Are you mad?" Tali interjected.

All this shocked Cortana a little as Master Chief replied. "No, I'm not insane. Practically five out of ten UNSC ships have an AI, I was assigned to be Cortana's custodian. And we haven't had any problems with them until they go rampant, and they are shut down as soon as they show symptoms of rampancy."

Cortana blinked, it was the most she'd ever heard Master Chief say at once. But either way, the Spartan's statement made them relax a little, except Tali.

"My people were exiled by the artificial intelligences we made, and you can just sit by and let them run your ships?"

It was Cortana's turn to interject, "I'd like to know the story behind that. UNSC AIs are not made by humans, we're made from humans. We scan the brain of a dead or dying human of academic stature, and that is turned into our core. We would only betray the UNSC during rampancy, and we are killed before we go rampant, at the first symptom. I estimate about two more years before I go rampant myself."

"Besides Tali," It was Shepherd, "You treated the Geth like slaves, and even went so far as to try annihilate them before they even turned against you."

"Look, I'm not saying I'm going to try and kill her, but I don't trust her either. Now, what's the UNSC?"

Cortana replied, "UNSC stands for United. Nations. Space. Command. It was established once humanity began to expand beyond Sol, and is currently the adopted government of humanity. Its current military leader is Lord Terrance Hood."

"What's a specter?" She asked.

"A specter? Well, they're the arm of the Citadel Council, we take care of various affairs they can't."

"What's a spartan?" Shepherd countered, only for Master Chief to dodge the subject.

"Me. Now, tell me how you got here."

"The Gale, my frigate."

He raised his gun again, "Now tell me why you're here."

"We came to salvage what we could off your ship and see just who owned it. We were curious because there was English lettering on the side."

"I see. Well, I need a lift. Do I have to take it or will you let me come aboard."

"I'd like to see you-" Ashley started.

"Cool it, we're not trying to make an enemy here. We'll let you aboard, but only until we reach the Citadel."

Master Chief nodded and put his hand on Cortana's console, downloading her.

Shepherd nodded back and they started for the ship, weapons trained on Chief the whole way.

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_Can't believe this is so long._


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**

**I do not have claim to Halo, and I do not have claim to Mass Effect either.**

**This if for recreational purposes only.**

!Notice!

_Thanks for the feedback people, I like feedback quite a lot. _

_Now, to reply to my anomalous reviewer._

_I've read Halopedia several times, but I rarely need to reference from it. Sorry for the mis-spell on the MA5B is a real weapon if I recall correctly. It's been a little while since I've wrote about the Chief._

**Chapter- **Welcome to the Past

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**Both**

Shepard and the rest of his team reached the escaped pod, which Master Chief ripped off its hinges, as it was weakened beyond repair. After this display, they followed him into the open airlock of the Normandy, guns put away as they wouldn't do much in this environment.

The doors opened for them and they stepped into the decontamination room, which simply ran a few scans over them before allowing them into the ship.

"Welcome back Commander-" Joker started before noticing the Chief. "Wow, there was still someone alive in there?"

"Save it Joker, we're taking him to the Citadel, I think the council will like to meet him. Excuse me, I have to make my report." Shepard said, leaving the room.

'_So this is the Gale.' _Cortana said from within the Chief's suit as they were escorted to an elevator, which led them to a corridor lined with doors. '_Crew quarters, the officers' ones at least. I noticed some pods upstairs.'_

Master Chief's reply was a grunt as he was led to a room at the far end, guarded by a pair of marines who shakily saluted, '_At the officer behind me probably.'_ It was an expected change from the UNSC, where just about everyone military would salute out of respect. Here they were more frightened than respectful of him.

He entered the room and noticed its simplicity, a dresser with three changes of clothes, a small desk with a computer on it, and a bed. He turned on the computer, and was greeted by a message saying, '**G.I.N.' **with the words '**Galactic Information Network' **written in smaller print under it.

He uploaded Cortana to it, as she would be curious. Not surprisingly, it was cut off from the rest of the ship. "They probably anticipated you being uploaded." Master Chief state flatly. The first thing he did was start dis-assembling and re-assembling his weapons, cleaning them and making small repairs as he went. He was done with each in relatively ten seconds, a new record. As he was finishing the last one, his assault rifle, Commander Shepard walked into the room impromptu. "Commander." Master Chief acknowledged, resisting the urge to salute as they weren't in the same military.

"That's a pretty fast job." Shepard commented.

"This is nothing, Kelly cou-can do it in half the time." Master Chief replied.

Shepard tried to ignore the windows on the screen behind the Chief opening and closing on their own as he replied. "Kelly? Then you aren't the only Spartan? Not very surprising."

"I'm the last."

"Oh, I can sympathize there. I went on a mission to Akune with an entire platoon of marines, and left alone."

"You want to know about us don't you, about the Spartans?"

"Not just me, the entire council."

"We're or were, for lack of a better word, super soldiers. We went through the program when we were six, and left at about sixteen, already in the military. We were trained to be Earth's finest, the brightest and strongest humanity had to offer, there were 75 of us then. We were now the strongest soldiers, humans, in history, but there were only thirty after the augmentations, and now I'm the last."

The screen behind him paused a second, before continuing as Shepard pressed. "What program, they let you join the military at six?"

"Let us? The military was all we had other than each other, we were inducted at the age of six, being told our parents were killed in various ways by the rebels and other parties. From there it was training every day, and night if we didn't succeed enough."

"Must've been harsh."

"Nothing compared to the Covenant when we went into active service."

"What are the covenant, exactly?"

"The covenant were a hierarchical race of religious zealots bent on our destruction. The were several races, Elites, Grunts, Brutes, Hunters, Drones, etc etc. The Elites were there field commanders, replaced by the Brutes when they realized their error, some Grunts and most the Hunters went with them."

"Error?"

"They worshiped an ancient race called the Forerunners as gods, not to the appeal of the Forerunner's remaining legacy. They thought the could ascend to become gods when they fired Halo, which was an orchestrated delusion. Halo would kill them, it would kill us _all_, so I destroyed it, twice."

"Did the-"

"Did humanity survive? Last time I checked they did, but I don't know anymore. I'd think your proof it did though."

"Not necessarily Chief, get this." Cortana interrupted, "The year is 2183."

"Impossible Cortana, hat was four centuries ago." Chief interrupted.

"That's what their calendar says."

"If I may interrupt, you're saying that you're from the future?"

"No, I don't have any records of anything you've spoken of." Cortana replied, "We must of landed in another dimension due to the slipspace cut-off, but the odds are extremely low."

Both occupants of the room ignored her droning of numbers. "More reason for you to meet the council." Shepard concluded

The comm. Blared on, "We have a problem Commander, five Geth ships just jumped in-system, they're blocking the relay we need to go through."

"This isn't good." Shepard stated, "Why are the Geth here?"

"I don't know commander- Crap, another ten Geth ships just jumped in, they're coming after us commander, they still have the original five at the relay."

"Hold tight Joker, send a request for aid, tell them we have important cargo on board."

"Come on, we have to get ready to fight off boarders."

The Chief nodded and they left the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**

**I have claim to neither Halo nor Mass Effect.**

**This is for recreational purposes only.**

!Notice!

_Thanks for the quick feed back The amazing chicken Dinner. As for people who haven't reviewed, it takes up less than ten minutes of your time and it gets the chapters to come faster, what's so hard about it?_

_For clarification, the Gale is about 25 percent larger than the Normandy._

**Chapter-** Machine vs. Super-Human

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**Both**

The scene throughout the _Silver Gale_ could be described as controlled chaos, groups of marines replacing the ammo in their rifles with Tungsten V rounds and adding heat sinks to them, before rushing to their assigned airlock and bunkering in. They didn't worry about being hit, as the _Gale_ was the most agile ship in the fleet. In fact, it was weaving around various forms of fire the Geth assaulted it with, as its speed caused them to break formation and scatter about, forcing them to use their smaller ships and board it, lest they kill each other. The most critical airlock was on the uppermost floor, only a single room away from the bridge and pilot. It had ten marines, including Shepard, his squad, and the Master Chief. All of which were pointing their weapons at the door. They were already bunkered up behind crates and portable barricades.

"_I sent a request for aid out on Citadel frequencies, but I can't tell if anyone's nearby to receive it; the Geth are jamming our scanners. Good thing we have a good view of the battle, and the Geth ships are white__."_

"Understood Joker." Shepard replied, "Sit tight in there, we won't let them through. But just in case, open the small arms locker."

"_Roger that Commander, Joker out.__"_

"_I wonder what these Geth are like." _Cortana stated in Chief's helmet.

She got her answer as the door was blown off, a pair of humanoid with flashlight heads marching through in red armor holding some sleek weapons. They were about to fire, but a hail of fire from the marines killed that idea.

After them came four in black armor, holding slightly longer weapons, but they were blown to pieces by a plasma grenade from the Chief. It continued on like this in waves, until a marine screamed and died, they turned and saw they Geth had cut through the wall behind them, there was a pair of Geth in orange and black armor standing there, blasting at the defenders, who quickly took positions at the door leading to the bridge, which was promptly blown off as the Geth started puring through, over the dead bodies of two marines that had been taking cover on either side of the door. It became a bloody pocket fight as the marines would duck from cover and fire, only to die while most others preferred t fire blindly.

Shepard ducked from cover just long enough to launch a grenade, which promptly detonated in the close quarters, killing most of the Geth coming through the door. These were finished off by a hail of fire as the marines pushed back into the room, blast doors finally closing off the airlock.

They pushed a large crate in front of the hole, which was being pelted by near-continuous fire from the squad, and the fight came to a brief halt.

The Geth almost pushed the crate back out of the way, but one of the marines turned out to be a biotic and sent a wave of energy at the crate, pushing it back onto the door. A team of engineers quickly welded the crate in place and a marines sergeant nodded, his hand to his ear, before approaching Shepard. "Area's secure, we can hold off whatever comes by, but the Med bay is about to be overrun sir, go on down there."

"If we leave here, the Geth will just make another hole and overwhelm you, the bridge a key position-"

"I'll go." Chief volunteered.

"Fine, you go. We're staying here." Shepard replied, taking up position again.

Chief nodded, he preferred it that way anyway, they were liabilities as far as he was concerned, but he needed to reach this citadel and find some answers.

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**Chief**

Before they could blink, he was on his way to the med-bay, following Cortana's instructions. He encountered a group of Geth fighting a patrol of marines in one of the corridors, they managed to seal of the airlock, but they were still having trouble, as they were surrounded.. The Chief fixed that by rolling an incendiary grenade under the Geth's feet, which promptly exploded into flame, burning the unfortunate Geth standing over it into ash. Chief rushed the remaining two Geth, a pair of troopers, holding his assault rifle in one hand and filling the Geth to his right with lead, before quickly turning around and stabbing the other Geth through its head with his combat knife, before bashing it aside with his assault rifle. After which he turned and pelted a Geth destroyer about to bash a marine's head in from behind full of lead.

The marines gathered themselves in time to turn and finish the other destroyer off.

"That was amaz-" the astonished marine was cut off as the Chief merely nodded, rushing past them and through a maintenance passage that Cortana said would lead to the med bay and cut about five minutes off his journey.

"_It should be just around this cor-",_ Cortana was cut off as the Chief turned a corner to see about fifteen Geth facing off against a squad of marines, in a large open room filled with overturned tables and chairs, there were crates of food toppled and spilling in various places. The Chief entered the fight by taking cover and throwing a fragmentation grenade at one of the larger Geth positions, evening the odds a little for the marines. Before the Geth could respond, he activated an active camouflage he had been storing and crept up on a large Geth, apparently leading the attack. He but the barrel of his shotgun to its head and fire, before swiftly planting a frag under its feet and leaping back, landing conveniently behind an overturned table as the rest of the Geth turned and pelted the area around him with fire, their leader being maimed by the blast underneath its feet.

When the Geth turned around, the marines pelted them with their own fire, quickly ending the fight.

A marine walked up to him, "You are?"

"Master Chief Petty Officer 117. I came down from the bridge to help you out."

"Well, we're grateful Chief. If you hadn't shown up, that alpha would have killed us off."

"No problem."

As the conversation was starting the heard the comm. Blare up, "_This is Joker, we've got some back-up. An alliance patrol just happened to be passing by and heard our distress call. Sit back and enjoy the show folks."_

As Joker was speaking, the Chief walked over to a window in time to see five alliance ships jump in-system and fire some kind of blue missiles, two each, which punched through the Geth ships, that promptly exploded. The patrol moved up on the Geth as they turned to try and meet the onslaught, only for a hail of small missiles to hit them in their rears, via the _Gale_, punching through the shields as Joker could be heard cheering, when the alliance patrol fired another set of missiles, halving the enemy number, which was finished off as several large, 180 degree turrets emerged from the _Gale's_ 'wings', which fired several rapid-succession projectiles, that glowed yellow as the punched into the Geth ships, destroying them in a brilliant explosion. All in space's silent embrace, though the Chief could hear very audible thumps as the projectiles were fired.

Meanwhile on the bridge, "What was that?" Shepard asked Joker, clearly surprised.

"Just a little tweaking, courtesy of the Salarians, who developed it as a prototype weapon."

"How does it work?"

"It fires several small torpedoes, which have an artificial biotics engine that allows them to slice through most hulls, once in side they detonate with the force of one of our earlier nuclear missiles. What's more, they're easy and cheap to make, all it requires is a simple VI, omni-tool, a simple fission engine, and a Unity amp."

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(_By now, it's relatively cheap to make __fusion__ engines, so nuclear weapons are not very expensive anymore, to compensate we've developed powerful shields and hazard suits, which make nuclear war a little less devastating.)_

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"I see, so how many ships have it?"

"Just us, looks like you have an invaluable prototype ship again commander."

"Great."

"Hold on commander, we're getting a message. The patrol wants to know what's so valuable it attracted the Geth in these numbers."

"Tell them that we're escorting the ambassador for another government, and everything else is need-to-know, that should shut them up."

That finished, the first human specter did something all humans need to do, sleep.

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**Chief**

The Master Chief returned to his room after the fight was over, and did something he hadn't done in years after placing Cortana on a small holographic pedestal she told him how to make, from the computer's parts. He took off his armor.

"_What do you know, there is a face under there."_ Cortana teased as the Master Chief ignored her, cleaning his armor and arranging it into a neat layout behind his bed.

"_So how does it feel to be without your armor, John?"_

"Awkward." Master Chief paused after answering to his birth-name for the first time in several years.

After which, he lied down on the bed and caught some well-earned sleep.


End file.
